


Not Death But Love

by GunBunnyCentral



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:49:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GunBunnyCentral/pseuds/GunBunnyCentral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't nearly long enough, but it's all they have - and they're both desperately afraid of wasting it somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Death But Love

**Author's Note:**

> In answer to two burning questions - what *did* the girls do while they were stuck alone together in the Sanctum, and how on earth was Myka supposed to know what Helena meant when she said she smelled apples at the end of 'Stand'?

_...Straightway I was 'ware,_  
 _So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move_  
 _Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;_  
 _And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--_  
 _"Guess now who holds thee!"--"Death," I said, But, there,_  
 _The silver answer rang, "Not Death, but Love."_  
  
Elizabeth Browning, 'Not Death But Love'  
  
 _"There is only one god, and His name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today.'"_  
  
Syrio Forel, _Game Of Thrones_ by George RR Martin  
  
********************  
  
Reason tells Myka that this is the most inappropriate and grotesquely macabre place possible for a tryst - a makeshift one-room charnel house containing a deathtrap and the remains of its previous victims, including the all-too-fresh corpse of its most recent casualty, the unfortunate Tyler Struhl.  
  
Emotion tells Myka that it doesn't matter, that she can't *let* it matter - she can't count on ever having another private moment with Helena like the one she has the chance to seize here if she's bold enough.  
  
Even if the Regents don't force Helena to become Emily Lake again, it's not likely they'll just let her rejoin the Warehouse team - that much is a given after what happened in Warehouse 2 and at Yellowstone, whether they consider her rehabilitated or not.  
  
The thought of being forcibly separated from Helena again stabs through Myka with a pain that's nearly physical in its intensity, and urges her to find a way to propel herself beyond any real concern about the appropriateness of her actions or their timing while there's still a chance to.  
  
It isn't terribly difficult to manage, if Myka's being honest. Even discounting the personal fallout from Helena's breakdown, Myka is still reeling from her hardest year yet as a Warehouse agent - these last few weeks in particular have been filled with so much death and loss, culminating in her presence in this chamber of horrors.  
  
Finally catching Sam's killer, only to have it lead to more death and betrayal...  
  
Sykes systematically targeting the Regents, torturing and murdering any of them unlucky enough to fall into his hands...  
  
The near-disaster with Jane Lattimer and the other Regents at the skyscraper, a debacle that cost a Regent and his bodyguard their lives...  
  
Report after report of Sykes' own people ending up dead, either by his hand or their own, including Tyler Struhl just tonight...  
  
Poor brave Steve, who she should have taken the time to get to know better, dead now after going undercover to stop Sykes...  
  
It's no wonder, really, that all Myka craves is some sign of life amidst all that death, a few moments of happiness to push away all that horror and grief. It's that raw craving - plus the sheer miracle of having Helena near her in the actual flesh, which she never thought would ever happen again - that drives her to pull Helena close and initiate their first kiss.  
  
Well, not technically their first - there's still that one time when Helena, for reasons even she's never been able to quite fathom, had obliged a slightly tipsy Myka when she'd gotten overly curious about Helena's experiences kissing other women. The resultant fireworks had rattled them both enough that they'd never even spoken of the experiment, much less repeated it - hindsight, however, suddenly gives it all a certain humorous quality that leaves Myka tempted to tell Pete the story some day, just to see his reaction.  
  
This second kiss, though, is vastly different - the fireworks are the same, if not actually stronger this time, but once Helena recovers from her initial surprise, there's no hesitation from either party, or any unease afterward. The only thing marring it is an underlying sense of desperation that's unavoidable given the circumstances.  
  
The moment is as close to perfect as it can possibly be, given that death is at their heels and duty is calling stridently enough to drown out almost everything else, so they refuse to let it go just yet - with even the most basic and most innocent physical affection having been denied them for so long, they can't help but silently cling to each other out of fear that this opportunity simply can't last.  
  
Helena recovers her voice first, a hint of mischief no doubt showing in her eyes as she whispers in Myka's ear. "You know, darling, we have at least ten more minutes until the portal can be reopened..."  
  
Myka gets exactly what Helena is suggesting, and, under any other circumstances, would surely be appalled at her timing - but she knows as well as Helena does that those ten minutes probably encompass the entire length and breadth of whatever path they choose for themselves as a couple.  
  
It isn't nearly long enough, but it's all they have - and they're both desperately afraid of wasting it somehow.  
  
Myka merely nods her consent, easily pushed past any doubt or hesitation when the only other likely outcome is to never have Helena at all. In that moment, she doesn't care about whether it's right or wrong to do this, or even what the others might say if they ever learn about it.  
  
By the moment after that one, Myka doesn't care about much of anything except the myriad sensations Helena is evoking in her. The wall at Myka's back is cold, but Helena's hands under the clothes they don't have time to remove are warm, and sure, and somehow gentler than Myka would have expected under these conditions.  
  
For her part, Myka is pretty sure her own awkward, nervous fumbling has her ranking right there alongside your average inexperienced high school kid, but Helena isn't complaining and there isn't time for that kind of performance anxiety.  
  
The anxiety nonetheless flares anew for a moment as Helena steps back, but she's just trying to pull Myka away from the wall and over to - what, exactly?  
  
Myka looks around and sees only the chess board and chair, neither of which strikes her as any better than their section of wall that's far, far removed from falling overhead blades. "Uh - Helena? What - ?"  
  
Helena just keeps pulling at her, and Myka can't seem to do anything other than follow along even as she nervously eyes their destination. "It's okay, Helena, the wall is fine, really..."  
  
Helena scoffs at that. "Darling, if this moment is all we're going to get, I'm *not* taking you up against a wall like some cheap doxy in a back alley."  
  
She's so completely earnest in her sentiment that Myka has to suppress the urge to grin, or giggle, or something equally inappropriate that will only get her fussed at - truth be told, she's desperately missed that quirky, random, ever-shifting mix of modern and Victorian sensibilities that is uniquely Helena.  
  
Still, Myka can't help balking at the last moment, given what the chess board and chair actually are, and that she was there on the wrong side of it just a short while ago.  "Helena, I can't..."  
  
Helena, of course, refuses to be deterred. "Nonsense, darling - it's perfectly safe with the lock dormant. Trust me!"  
  
No sane person should ever actually *trust* Helena Wells after a statement like that, but Myka never can really refuse her anything - she finally just capitulates with an aggrieved sigh as she lets Helena settle her back onto the table.  
  
She tries not to look at the lock hanging above them like some twisted variant on the sword of Damocles, but she can't help it. Rather than being frightened or horrified, though, she's struck by the thought that it's all an oddly apt metaphor for her and Helena's relationship up to this point - always three moves away from disaster, with the raw strength of their connection the metaphorical single horsehair that keeps the blade from falling on their heads.  
  
Then Helena's hands and mouth start moving across Myka's body - what of it Helena's been able to bare under the circumstances - and there isn't much room for coherent thought anymore as her own hands tangle themselves in Helena's hair.   
  
It could be that Helena was in fact not exaggerating her skills after all, or maybe it's just the tension and urgency of the moment adding an edge to her responses, or maybe even all the above, but Myka's pretty sure she's never climaxed that hard and that fast before - ever.  
  
She's also quite relieved that she didn't in fact yank any of Helena's hair out by the roots during the process, but she's not going to mention that one unless she has to.  
  
The moment or two it takes for Myka to catch her breath and readjust her clothing is all it takes for her insatiable curiosity to reassert itself, and she suddenly becomes the one pushing Helena back onto the table. She doesn't have Helena's experience, but she seems to do well enough with just instinct, simple enthusiasm, and her solid understanding of human anatomy - at very least, the pitch and volume of Helena's cries would seem to support that theory.  
  
There's no room for them to curl up together afterward, or time to even if they could, so Helena sits up and starts to get her own clothing back in order - it might be fun under other circumstances to let their rumpled, disarrayed clothing announce their involvement to the others so they can witness the reactions, but that will have to wait for another time, if there is one.  
  
Helena pauses in the middle of trying to smooth down her shirt, sniffing at the air with a strangely excited look on her face. "Myka - do you smell that?"  
  
Myka is about to tease her that it's *supposed* to smell like sex after you've just had sex - and it does still, a little - but she immediately picks up on what Helena's asking about. "Yeah, I do - it smells like apples, I think..."  
  
Helena's answering smile is almost beatific. "My very first day at Warehouse 12, the Warehouse decided it liked me for some reason - I kept randomly smelling apples from the moment I walked through the doors. Chaturanga had to explain what it meant."  
  
"So you think the Sanctum is telling us it enjoyed the show?" Myka teases, and suddenly realizes she has clearly been spending way too much time around Pete.  
  
"Is that so surprising, darling?" Helena teases back with her usual salacious grin, but quickly falls silent as the apple smell continues to grow stronger and is joined by a steadily building static charge in the air.  
  
Myka reaches for Helena's hand, intending to pull her away from the table before anything crazy happens, but a very visible and very painful arc of electricity leaps between their hands before they even make full contact.  
  
The lights also flicker and spark alarmingly as Myka and Helena scramble to their feet, but everything seems to have stabilized by the time they've moved several feet away from the lock. In fact, both the static charge and the apple smell seem to have crested and stabilized as well.  
  
It feels, Myka decides, an awful lot like the aftermath of a really bad storm - the air even feels cleaner now, like the miasma permeating the Sanctum has been broken up.  
  
Helena seems to have noticed the same thing, and then some, but seems unperturbed. "It looks... brighter in here."  
  
It *does* look brighter to Myka when she checks for herself, which is somehow far from comforting.  
  
"Helena," she demands, starting to panic as she grabs Helena by the front of her jacket, "what did we just do?!"  
  
She's about to continue by pointing out that she *knew* having sex anyplace even remotely connected to the Warehouse was a bad idea, and that she can't believe she let Helena talk her into it, but nothing actually dangerous has happened yet and even she can't hold onto unjustified panic indefinitely.  
  
Helena, for her part, is still just smiling beatifically as she looks around. "We cleared the air, darling, both figuratively and psychically. Our emotional and physical release must have dissipated and replaced all the negative energy that had built up here - I imagine the Sanctum was simply thanking us for it."  
  
Myka can't think of anything appropriate to say in response to that, so she just smacks Helena in the arm the way she usually does Pete when he's clearly neglected to mention extremely pertinent information - never mind, of course, that there really isn't any way Helena could have known anything unusual would happen.  
  
Helena makes a face and starts to say something as she rubs her arm, but her watch alarm goes off, interrupting her.  
  
Silence hangs heavy as Helena stops the alarm, then finally says what they're both thinking. "It's time, darling."  
  
They cover the anxiety of the next few moments by bantering as they set the chess board back up, the only serious note to the exchange occurring when Myka reminds Helena to stop playing the martyr over her past transgressions. All too soon, though, the game is done and the portal open again, ready for them to use.  
  
Even in the face of what they are likely about to lose, neither woman hesitates or complains. They don't really say anything, actually, as they stand in front of the open portal - as they step through it, in silence, they simply take each others' hands.  
  
It's an unspoken promise that they'll fight, together, for whatever it is they've finally found in each other, no matter what happens next.


End file.
